May 2026 stands as the most consequential month in Ethiopia’s digital information space in recent memory. Not because it set a record for sheer volume, but because of the quality and concentration of the false content that circulated. With Ethiopia’s seventh general election scheduled for June 1, the month effectively became a final rehearsal. Fact-checkers and civil society organizations had warned for months about exactly this kind of coordinated narrative manipulation.

MFC recorded 836 cases of disinformation between May 1 and May 31 – up from 709 in April, a rise of 17.9%. The growth tracked the election timeline directly. As voting day approached, content actors across the political spectrum accelerated production of misleading and outright false material. Crucially, May’s disinformation differed structurally from April’s. That month, a single cultural flashpoint – Teddy Afro’s album – had driven a disproportionate share of the volume. In May, disinformation spread more evenly across multiple concurrent storylines. That distribution points to a wider, more deliberate operation.

The regional picture was sobering. In Tigray, the TPLF unilaterally reconstituted its pre-war legislative council and appointed Dr. Debretsion Gebremichael as regional president. That move further destabilized the Pretoria Agreement framework. Tigray’s formal exclusion from the national ballot added a sharp institutional dimension to an already fractured environment.

In Oromia, the Oromo Liberation Army’s transport blockade created logistical disruption across the region. Those disruptions amplified fears and fueled disinformation about security conditions ahead of the vote. In Amhara, the Fano armed group threatened anyone who participated in the election. Reports of killings, looting, and the death of Brigadier General Asnake Aytenew in an ambush kept online tension elevated throughout the month.

The international dimension sharpened, too. Sudan formally accused Ethiopia and the UAE of involvement in a drone strike on Khartoum International Airport. A fabricated infographic purporting to confirm those allegations then circulated in Amharic and Tigrinya -traceable almost entirely to Ethiopian accounts, not Sudanese ones. That pattern points to deliberate domestic amplification of a foreign accusation.

AI-generated imagery remained the dominant disinformation tool, accounting for 318 of the 836 documented cases. For the first time, MFC also documented structured cases of Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB). Networks of accounts ran targeted harassment and disinformation campaigns against specific individuals – including an independent election candidate and a human rights lawyer.

Finally, the platform landscape held consistent. TikTok and Facebook remained the primary distribution channels. Telegram continued to serve as a key space for organized political content sharing – the backstage where many coordinated campaigns took shape before going public.

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